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VIA HEDERA

2018 was the year of line-drawing occult art. Trends come and go but line-art and etching-style occult art never go out of style for us witches. Black and white is the new style du jour in the tarot community, and I expect it's going to last a bit. Like many of you, I'm a little tired of the hyper-colored, digital art extreme that tarot took in the mid 2000's so I'm enjoying this return to traditional, monochromatic simplistic designs. The last few decks I've reviewed (Ophidia Rosa, Absurd and Mildred Payne) were all moving towards this new edge in tarotcraft, relying on less color and more illustration. Well, 2019 is here and I've got some decks from last year that you are sure to add to your collection once you've seen them.

For me, there were four stand-out decks from 2018: The Bianco Nero, The Line Defined, The Moon Void and The Marigold Tarot (which I'm leaving out because it already received it's own review HERE). I was a backer for Marigold and Line Defined on kickstarter, which is honestly one of the best ways to stay ahead of the crowd when it comes to up and coming tarot decks, artists and editions. The Bianco I discovered at a pagan fair over the summer and the Moon Void fell into my lap while binging on tarot reviews.

Let's take a look at my Top Tarot Decks of 2018

3. Bianco Nero TarotLikes: the slim card-stock- I'm seeing a trend of fatter, heavier card-stock and I don't love it when it comes to shuffles, but the Bianco is slim, smooth and skinny enough to move in my hands like butter. The illustrations are classic and realistic, beautifully detailed, with a ton of hidden symbolism.Thoughts: Mr. Marco Proietto, make another deck just like this one, but with my adorable face on every card. You'll sell millions!

2. The Line Defined TarotLikes: the rough gold edging, the detailed lines, the symmetry and balance; I love how life and death are depicted in every card.Thoughts: This was a worthy backing, I think this artist could make a few really fascinating decks.

1. The Moon Void TarotLikes: Every card is full of self expression and I love the splashes of red here and there to break up the monotony of the black and white. It's both feminine and soft without losing its edgy modernism, I adore it.Thoughts: None, buy this deck.

Bruuuuhhhhh you have no idea how much this deck just tickles my patriotic fancy, but most importantly (and real the reason I'm backing and buying his deck) is Frank from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia will be gracing the World Card. I literally need nothing else in life but this card. The art looks great and the theme is a combination of pride and humor, but nothing will sell a deck like Danny DeVito. Philly Tarot, shut-up and take my money.

"They kill cattle by shooting them with balls of hair, stunt the growth of children, make cows go dry, prevent the formation of butter and soap, and inflict a variety of personal injuries and domestic misfortunes."- Journal of American Folklore

I'm not one to espouse the use of harmful charms of folklore, and I’m not apt to teach them, but I do respect their history and their value. Nothing is more witchy than a good hex, and the New World has a particular tradition of cursing and hex charms that are ever so interesting to reclaim in our modern practices. Our baleful charms are those involving dolls, knots, needles, powders, potions, and yes, even hairballs. "Witches are supposed to shoot animals with little hairballs, which pass through the hide and lodge, without leaving any hole."- Cora L. Daniels, Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the WorldThere are two kinds of “witch balls”: those of Western European origin, made of glass, designed to negate or redirect the influence of an evil spirit or a witch, and, those of New World make which are balls of cattle or horse hair rolled with an adhesive substance into a small ball which is then used in cursing spells. One is to avert witchcraft, the other is an expression of malicious witchcraft, or, counter-magic, or, an apotropaic charm.

"A small bunch of hair from a horse or cow is rolled between the two hands into small round ball, and this ball is used as a bullet. In whatever part the ball hits the picture, in the corresponding part of the victim, a wound is inflicted." -Journal of American Folklore

Actual accounts of witch-bullets being used to harm people and livestock have been recorded throughout the last few hundred years, with reports detailing physical evidence of injury and even naming some of those witches, conjurers and sorcerers accused of practicing this magic. Conversely, the average non-witch folk charmer often resorted to hairballs as an anti-witch charm. Effingham County Illinois folklore regards witch balls as a charm that can be shot against a witch. And just as silver bullets (another traditional charm with European parallels whose real-life applications seem to appear mostly in American gun magic folklore) were used to both create and destroy witches the simple hairball could have this power.

"Among their evil acts, they would transform unwitting sleepers into horses and ride them, bewitch cattle to stop them from giving milk, and kill or injure victims by throwing witch balls, made of hair from cows or horses, at pictures of their victims." -Jeffrey E. Anderson, Conjure in African American Society

Where the hair-balls are concerned, witches in Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana folklore, were said to roll these little hairballs into bullets to be used in a form of sympathetic magic in which the balls were shot at pictures or depictions of one’s enemy. It was believed that if one were to die from this magic, a ball of hair would be found within the victim. These differ greatly from the famed bezoars, which were said to have valuable, beneficial qualities.
"Randolph notes witch balls described as being the size of a marble made of black horse hair, and another one made of black hair and beeswax that was rolled up into a hard pellet. The belief is that a hairball (or witch bullet) could be thrown or shot at a person by a witch. This hairball (or bullet) would be found on the body of anyone killed by this method."-Gerald Milnes, Signs, Cures, & Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore (p. 168)

Mentions in both story-telling and in recorded reports stretch throughout the South and Midwest, cited most frequently in the Carolinas, Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Delaware, Tennessee, Iowa, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland and even Michigan.

“The concept of supernatural shooting was common to all, but the notion that witches fired balls or bullets seems to have developed from Native American conceptualization of European technology within a supernatural framework of disease, which then was passed back to the European colonizers.”-Owen Davies,America Bewitched(p.41-42)

Cattle-Killer

Conjure balls were not unlike witch bullets, with more parallels to West African hex charms- these usually took the form of small bundles or mud balls filled with hair, rags and pins. The purpose of this magic is to cause living things within or internal turmoil, leading to death most often if not treated by a witch-doctor. Where conjure balls were concerned, it was regularly described as a ball of earth gathered from the homestead of the victim, hair (the specific number was usually not referenced but one Indiana bit of lore suggests seven or nine pieces were to be used), red knotted rag and the tips of nails, combined together and thrown at a house, above a door or in the path of a victim. Or, the ball was described as an actual bundle in red cloth full of similar items, items which will cause great illness both physically and spiritually. In parts of Louisiana conjure traditions, the conjure ball is worn on the person and its ingredients are not always known, as it it prepared by an experienced conjurer or witch-doctor. In Texas folk medicine, a conjure ball was to be worn on the person as an apotropaic anti-witch charm. This form of Afro-diasporic magic permeated the lore of hoodoo, voodoo and conjure and found parallels in the Western-European American and Southeast Indigenous projectile magic traditions.
"A spell was usually worked by means of a conjure ball buried in the victims path. Bent pins and human hairseem to have been the commonest ingredients, though they were reported to contain snake's tongues, lizard tails, ground puppy claws and so on down the gruesome gamut."-Frank C. Brown, Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore: Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina

This form of sympathetic magic became a staple part of witch-lore throughout much of the South, Southeast and Midwest, and was exclusively tied to the act of cursing by or against witches- something that became a popular superstition in agrarian Afro-American communities and is steeped into rural white American folktales as well. Witch balls, like so many other traditions of magic in America, represent the synthesis of mystical beliefs shared between three very different cultures thrown together at a tremendously difficult time in history, in philosophy, in faith.

Elf-Shots: "Those Arrows That Fly in the Dark "

Not too much unlike the notion of elf-shots from European folklore (a feature which made its way to Scottish, Irish and German-American communities) which were invisible missiles fired by fairies and the like at livestock. Each was very different from the other in origin and material, but the intention was the same; hex-craft."-Anglo-Saxon references suggest elf-shot was generally attributed to internal injuries from invisible, magical, projectile weapons wielded by unseen malevolent elves, or witches." -Michael D. C. Drout, J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment

Though an elf shot was not inherently a facet of witchcraft, nor associated with hairballs, the concept would have been a familiar bit of folklore to Irish, Scottish and English settlers in the New World, which would have made recognizing the significance of “the magic evil invisible ball that kills cattle” recognized by African and Indigenous groups a familiar supernatural experience. An elf shot was a hidden arrow, a sharp prick of some unseen missile launched from the fairies. The effect of a fairies arrow was much like that of the conjure ball and the witch-bullet- when shot at a victim, it caused death without leaving scarcely a mark on the flesh. All that was said to be left behind was a triangular stone.

"Using Elf Shot is one of the many ways that witches and fairies overlap and it is truly a fearsome power."-Morgan Daimler, Traveling the Fairy Path

As hysteria amassed and the distinction between all that was fairy and all that was occult became ever blurred, the association between fairies and witches, their familiars and the devils themselves became ever deeper. While I don’t personally believe the wee folk are classified with demons, devils and are not analogous to witches, I do respect the history of association between people with power and the other crowd. After all, famed witch Isobel Gowdie whose surrounding lore shaped some of our perceptions of Old World witchcraft traditions, herself claimed in her trial to have consorted with fairies at the sabbath and learned their art of deadly darts.

“Isobel claimed that her sabbath experiences included the learning of maleficent spells and the performance of harmful magic She described stealing crops from fields, milk from cows, and fish from fishing boats; raising winds, killing people with elf arrows and increasing the sickness of a local minister with whom she and her company had a grievance.”-Emma Wilby, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanic Visionary traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (p.88)

Shooting a Ball at Reality

There’s much to criticize in how the New World developed its unique traditions of folk magic, but there’s a lot to celebrate too, so much to enjoy about the combination of beliefs that made survival for everyone’s heritages in the New World possible. It’s more blessing than burden, this Afro-Euro-Indigenous combination of folklore and magical currents. Even things seemingly at odds, will inevitably find some commonalities. And something as mean as a curse, has been a place of common ground. Witch-bullets have become one of those charms whose origins show a synthesis of beliefs, a recognition between peoples regarding a universal problem: witches. And for some reason, our ancestors often agreed that witches fired shots at their victims, and in America, we do it with hairballs.

...More likely than not, our dear ancestors, who had far less understanding of medicine than we have, attributed an accumulation of hair in the stomach to that of a witch's bullet, not understanding the commonality of such an occurrence in many mammals, and so a person or livestock or pet who was found to have a hairball within it, was thought to be cursed by a witch. The reality is most people or animals that would have suffered from hairballs in their stomachs were likely inhaling or eating materials, fibers which they could not naturally break down, people working in industries with lots of wool and textiles, people suffering from trichophagia, animals who groom themselves by licking, and of course, the witches’ themselves; cats. We know much more now about the nature of hair found in the stomach, but aside from the cold hard science, we can enjoy the spiritual value and supernatural history of this tradition of witchlore. Modern ways to implement this practice would be to use witch-balls in their apotropaic design, to protect you, the wearer, from spiritual attacks just as those of the Bell witch haunting were said to have done. If you're not adverse to cursing, follow the old formulas of shooting the ball at at image of the enemy or at their house, or in their steps. Types of hair commonly mentioned for use are horse, cow, buffalo, black dog and black cat as well as the hair of your enemy for curses, the hair of the dead for the same, or, the hair of yourself for protection if you intend to keep the charm on you. If it were my bullet, I'd use the hair of a black rabbit... for that extra kick of swiftness.

However we came by our notion of hairball bullets, it’s a magical tradition shared in by witch and non-witch Americans alike, and ain't that grand?

References and Resources..

Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore: Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolinaby Frank C. Brown

Faiths and Folklore, Volume 1 by John Brand

Witchcraft in Illinois: A Cultural History by Michael Kleen

The Silver Bullet, and Other American Witch Stories by Hubert J. Davis

Knit with three knots the fillets; knit 'em straight; And say, "These knots to love I consecrate."-John Dryden, Virgil, The Works of Virgil Translated Into English Verse

The story of the witch as a meddler in affairs of the heart is an old one, as are the different folk charms employed by the most common of man to inspire adoration or even lust. I’ve spent many years fascinated with love charms and much of that time was spent focusing on the most famed love projects found in post-colonial lore of the new world and how we as new world witches, recreating the folkloric work of our ancestors, can bring them back into our work.

We all learn the old warnings early on, not to mess with love magic because the human heart and human mind are too fickle and mismatched to agree- so manipulating these forces is bound to bring undesired consequences, but we do it anyway. We, like Perimede, Kirki and Canidia before us, still long for that mystical power to ensnare whom we desire and bend the wills of men and women to our needs. It isn’t pretty and pleasant magic; often it is gritty and grimy and strange.

Neapolitan witches were said to use the rotting bits of corpses to achieve their magic, and those old Green Witches were creatures of darkness who were said to drug their victims into loving them. But what of the witch in the New World? Well, the use of potions, powders, elixirs and oils, dollies and all manner of amulet and talisman is second nature to love charms in North American folk magic- and the magic of love could be truly horrifying and morbid, utilizing rot and decay and poison to make one irresistible. Love charms in America more often than not, were surprisingly sweeter in nature; having more to do with prediction and divination than with coercion, but they are magics nonetheless.

In the old vernaculars of North America, love charms were called projects (North) or tricks (South) witching (South) or fortunes (Northeast and Midwest) and spells (West coast). For all these tricks and projects there are simple tools that achieve these dubious ends. The tools we use as witches are never as important as the intention behind our actions, but they are valuable nonetheless.

When you delve deep enough into folklore in the New World, you’ll find several tools employed for this craft which seem to overshadow most others. These tools are not the only ones in the box, but they are by far the most famed tools we know of with the most prolific uses in everyday folk magic. Love charms were taken very seriously by the rural folk of early America, and the fear of love potions, charms and curios is steeped deeply into Southern folklore, notably among the Ozarks (who were said by folklorist B.A Botkin, to believe those effected by love charms could not always be held accountable for their actions) and New Orleans who proudly displayed love charms in their local drug stores along side more "legitimate" medicines. Usually, love charms call for an herbal component like vervain, devil's shoestring, shameweed and sampson snakeroot, which, by the doctrine of plants, were supposed to either bind, find or invigorate love just by being present. Romantic potions and powders require an essay all their own, and frankly flower magic for erotic purposes could be its own book, but what of the standard objects within our own houses which can bring and bind love? What about that domestic love magic? Within the romantic folk charms of the States, there are some prominent tools of this largely divinatory path of love witching. And the tools with which this folk art could be achieved were; apples, dolls, knots, potions, powders and mirrors. Aside from mirrors which I've discussed before, what of the apple, the doll and the knot- the old enchantments we romanticize so well?

Witch Knots

“In our time ‘tis a common thing,” saith Erasmus, “for witches to take upon them the making of these philters, to force men and women to love and hate whom they will; to cause tempests, diseases, etc, by charms, spells, characters, and knots.”- Cora L. Daniels, Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World

The knot is one of those old magics that is so completely common and universal, we actually forget about its potency and history. This magic has roots in most ancient civilizations. Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans all dabbled in cords and knots specifically for use in love and curse magic:“You chant this spell seven times over a three stranded cord of lapis-colored wool, you knot it (and) you bind it in your hem. And when you enter into the presence of the prince, he will welcome you.”- Christopher A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic (in reference to Neo-Assyrian egalkura magic). Ancient occultism is the basis for a lot of the spells and charms seen in old grimoires and esoteric literature- this cycle of "superstition" has survived the centuries, the changing landscape of culture, the ever evolving constancy of human storytelling. A knot was a weary omen in the Europe of our ancestors, and as the world connected, these beliefs transmitted over culture, through time and are the basis for much of our deeper "superstitions" here in the new world. From the old-world perspective, knot charms usually meant that one was being bound in some way; bound to death, to love, to doom; “Lapland witches confessed that while they fastened three knots in a linen towel in the name of the devil and had spit on them, they called the name of him they doomed to destruction. This was one of the “sorcery cords” by which so much evil was supposed to be done.”- Smithsonian Institution: Bureau of American Ethnology, Annual Report

Garlands, ladders, girdles- whatever the knot, these strands of fate were utilized by peasant class pagans and ceremonial ritualists alike. The East brought us instances of knot magic involving the use of beads, feathers and hole-stones which adorn the threads- often these threads included the tendons or entrails of some potent animal and would be worn on the person or hidden in the home. From Greek and Roman sources, which much of our general knowledge of love spells is derived in the Western world, knotting magic is, more often than not, also associated with love and sexual desire, as well as beauty and chastity.

What we in America know of knot magic comes mostly from Scottish, English, Irish and Scandinavian folk charms, as well as some West African influence where knotting magic in witchcraft was a known terror. The charms we know of here are just as they were in the old world; for love and for cursing. Mostly love. These were very simple charms, layperson charms of no great ceremonial value which were often employed by lovesick youth.

"Thus girls when in as strange bed would, in years past, tie their garters nine times round the bedpost, and knit as many knots in them, repeating these lines by way of incantation:

"This knot I knit, this knot I tie,to see my lover as he goes by;

In his apparel and array,

As he walks in every day."

-T.F Thiselton-Dyer, Folklore of Women (1883)

A simple charm calls for a women's garters or stockings to be tied in a knot and hung above the bed while speaking this charm, “This knot I tie, this knot I knit, to see the young man I haven’t seen yet.”

And another following a similar formula goes as such:

"Aubrey has the following direction for anybody who wishes to know whom he shall marry: "You must lie in another county, and knit the left garter about the right-legged stocking (let the other garter and stocking alone), and, as you rehearse these following at every comma, knit a knot:

"This knot I knit, to know the thing I know not yet,

That I may see, the man (woman) that shall my husband (wife) be,

how he goes and what he wears, and what he does, all days and years."

-Faiths and Folklore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions and Popular Customs, Past and Current, with Their Classical and Foreign Analogues, Described and Illustrated, Volume 2 by William Carew Hazlitt

A variation of a Maine knotting trick from Halloween is a charm and incantation from Maryland that goes as such: Silently ready for bed and as you do so, wind a ball of string about your wrist as you say;

“I wind, I wind, This night to find, Who my true love’s to be; The color of his eyes, the color of his hair, and the night he’ll be married to me.”-from aSouthern folk-song

...And another, similar one from the Journal of American Folklore;

"On October 30- All-hallow Eve-- wind a ball of worsted and say; "I wind here, who winds there?" Fasten the loose end to some object near an open window, throw out the ball and watch."

Different colored cords, of specific material, and with particular incantations are supposed, in our lore, to weave together the very harmonies of fate in the favor of the weaver, every knot done binding an intention, and every knot pulled unraveling one’s work. Binding magic has a sort of universal quality to it that I can appreciate.

"Three times a True-Love's Knot I tye secure; Firm be the knot, firm may his love endure."- Gaye

Threads or balls of wool yarn are an old bit of folkloric magic, used to conceal or to bind, to dowse or divine. Even without the benefit of a binding knot, a ball of thread was a useful tool of divination, and in Midwestern folklore, the use of tossing balls of thread into dark places and waiting for a conjured spirit to respond to the action was associated almost exclusively with love fortunes.
"One way of discovering whom one was to marry seems to have been rather a favorite: the seeker deserted house or barn. He flung the ball into a door or window, keeping one end of the twine in his hand; then he began to reel in the twine again calling, "I wind, I wind; who holds?" A voice, telling him the name of his future bride."- S. P. Bayard, Witchcraft Magic and Spirits on the Border of Pennsylvania and West Virginia

Old world knotting magic made its way to the new world, even those charms which seem morbid and terrifying which are common to the historic love spells of the Old World. One spell from Le Petit Albert which became a somewhat famed occult manual popular with American occult enthusiasts in the 1800’s after distribution in French-speaking territories, including Louisiana and Quebec, called for the penis of a wolf to be tied in knots in order to render a man incapable of lust for any other person, called “Knotting the Cord”.

American versions of old world knot magic tend to use a lot less animal parts and use a lot more personal concerns; hair, socks, trousers, underwear, etc. Hair is one of the more important knot materials, tricks and projects (the terms used to describe love spells in parts of North America) which involved the use of binding magic often made use of hair either by binding the hair of two lovers together, weaving hair into a knot which is hidden in the home of the intended or can be otherwise fused in a way that symbolizes binding. Often, spells for knots in American lore relied on the number nine (three times three has well known occult symbolic force) and the a lover's knot was to be made with nine knots. Sometimes, nature itself makes the knot which binds lovers; “To bring a man and a woman together put some of the hair of each into a split made with an ax in the fork of a young sapling, and when the wood grows back over the hairs the two will be eternally united.”- B. A. Botkin, A Treasury of Southern Folklore: Stories, Ballads, Traditions, and Folkways of the People of the South.

Knot magic is simply binding magic, and so, for all the work it does to bring two people together, it can just as readily be used to split them asunder or wreak revenge: “A man can make himself immune to anti-love knot magic before getting married by filing his pockets with salt and urinating just before entering the church. In Italian lore the “witches garland” is a rope tied into knots that is used for casting curses. With every knot that is tied, the curse is repeated, and a black feather is stuck into the knot.”- Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Magic and Alchemy. In some ways, the idea of a woman who knew the ways of knotting was of such old school fear, that medical and occult manuals regularly specified ways in which men could be rendered impotent by a witch with a knot and other manuals detailed how to protect oneself from such evil doing, as to avoid medical maladies caused by such witching; “The powers of these knots were recognized, especially in strengthening or defeating love, as aiding women in labor and in other ways. One of the torments with which witchcraft worried men was the knot, by which a man was withheld so that he could not work his will with a woman.”- Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England (1864)- this information from Europe made its way into the occult lore of the New World and throughout our history, we see the witch's knot in folklore with the same fear and mystery.

Dollies

"An herb-filled poppet or cloth doll is often used during a love ritual. The doll is identified with the individual who is the object of the love spell, so that it becomes that person during the ritual."- James R. Lewis, Witchcraft Today: An Encyclopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Traditions

Wax dolls, wool dolls, corn dolls, mud or butter, dough or rags cotton or flax, wood or clay, even root- a doll made in the image of one’s lover to be bound to you in love and desire is not uncommon, and was likely even more common in the past. The “likeness” magic of dolls is part of the witchlore of many cultures, from Afro-American voodoo dolls to New English Poppets to Southwestern Wax dolls. Even here in the Northwest, bitterroot was supposed to have been used in charms similar to poppets and voodoo dolls. While most homunculi or simulacrum craft exist for the purpose of averting or controlling one’s enemies, they are also and often used to bind a lover to you, to control his or her movements and to keep them faithful. You were to treat your doll in the manner in which you would treat your intended lover; stroking it lovingly and drawing it ever towards you- and sometimes, piercing its heart with needles to drive it to heartache. Bits of Indiana folklore discuss the use of voodoo dolls for good love purposes; each made in a different color, with red and pink being used in charms of love and beauty. Dollies were not merely tools of imitative magic, they were also familiars; endowed with their own personalities and jealousies. Without proper care, a dolly was a dangerous foe.
"I am quite indifferent to the ordinary superstitions of the hillfolk. I visit graveyards at night, shoot cats on occasion and burn sassafras wood without a tremor. And yet, something akin to horror gripped me, as I watched the witch masters' sadistic foolery. I should not care to have that man burning a poppet wrapped in my undershirt."- Vance Randolph, Ozark Superstition

When most people think of love poppets in history, they probably imagine voodoo dolls of the Caribbean, stuck with pins and needles, or maybe they think of the stuffed, aromatic poppets of Egypt which were similarly tortured items but were also used to bind lovers. Most commonly, they’re probably thinking of Salem hysteria and Bridget Bishop’s unfortunate trial. When I think wax and wool dolls, I think of the erotic love magic of classical Greek lore, like Canidia was supposed to have done. I think of the complex rituals involving the creation of wax lover’s dolls which were given lengthy incantations and often burned (to activate them). Erotic Greek magic filtered into our general perceptions of love magic itself in the Western world, not least among these inheritances is the lore of sympathetic dolly magic.

Erotic spells using doll pairs, according to Ogden, was commonplace in Greek and Roman love magic, and in the surrounding cultures as well- and almost always in poetry in literature is the doll a product of an erotic witch. Wax dolls made their way throughout Southwestern lore courtesy of Hispanic settlers- though local tribes themselves used cursing-dolls made of various materials, or, performed similar magic on sand-drawn figures (Simmons, Marc). In New York and Virginia, old linen, twig and corn cob dolls have been discovered- their purposes unknown, but the multitude in one place may suggest doll-pairing, an important facet of poppet-magic. This imitative magic is the oldest in the world, and continues popular use today in Afro-diasporic magical traditions as well as New English witchlore. Of all the old love charms, dollies have to be among the darker ones.

The Apples of Love

Apples in the summer,

peaches in the fall;

If I can’t marry the girl I want,

I won’t have none at all.

General United States folklore values the apple, just as our general culture does. The apple is a symbol of nourishment, freedom and yes, love. The branches, skins, seeds, flesh, blossoms- all parts of apple trees can be used or were used in charms of love and beauty and are common ingredients in love spells of old. Our love charms involving apples, like apples themselves, have distinct origins in Western Europe and were disseminated by those who settled here. As always with love magic, most apple magic charms of old call for the presence of the midnight hour, mirrors and moonlight. Sometimes, an apple isn’t present at all, but rather a comb is used in its symbolic place and rather than eat an apple before a mirror, a girl is to comb her hair for nine strokes before a mirror. Combs, like apples, are old occult symbols of the figures of Venus: the divine ruler of romantic and erotic love.One simple incantation to be done while eating an apple at midnight before a mirror while holding a lamp for illumination goes; “Whoever my true love may be, Come and eat this apple with me.”The aforementioned are both divination and conjuring; the charm is meant to draw just as much as it is meant to be revelatory.

Now, in other versions, the apple is actually split into pieces (9) and, using a silver fork, one is to hold a piece over their left shoulder and in the mirror will see their future love biting the apple piece. Some love apple spells, of the medieval period, call for inscribing angelic names, or the name of your intended, into the apple and feeding it to your intended. Apples served covered in honey is referenced in some Southern lore as a method to ensnare a lover- one could offer this to the spirits who aid lovers during their work. The seeds of the apple are more useful for counting-fortunes (in the vein of petal plucking) using simple rhyme incantations. Often the seeds of the apple are placed on different body parts and balanced or counted along with some kind of incantation which is meant to properly divine one’s marital future. An even amount of seeds found in an apple is supposed to be a lucky sign for love, but an odd amount is unlucky. If on Easter morning, one is to eat an apple and say a simple incantation, “As Eve in her thirst for knowledge ate, So I too, thirst to know my fate.” And then count the seeds, the number will determine if one’s sweetheart will be true or untrue- this is also done on St. Thomas Night, St. Jude’s Day and Hallows Eve, but New years was supposed to be an unlucky time for this work. It’s rare to find American folklore of the apple that isn’t tied to love, even in a negative way, like our mythology concerning poisoned apples and magical evils worked through them. Otherwise, our apple traditions are all about drawing, keeping or discovering love. Apples and mirrors, may be the standard love-fortune pairing but apples and knots are also bedfellows, as referenced in the 18th century occult manuals which made their way throughout the Americas; “Concerning some secrets that one calls, according to the cabbalist sages, the Apple of Love, and are performed in this manner: You go one Friday morning before sunrise into a fruit orchard, and pick from a tree the most beautiful apple that you can; then you write with your own blood on a bit of white paper your first and last name, and on another line following, the first and last name of the person by whom you would like to be loved, and you try to have three of her hairs, to which you affix three of yours which you shall use to bind the little message you have written with another one, the which is to have nothing but the word Scheva, likewise written in your blood, then you slice the apple in two, you throw away the seeds, and in their place you lay your papers bound with hair, and with two sharp skewers made from green myrtle branches, you neatly rejoin the apple’s two halves and you will put it to dry in an oven, ensuring that it grows hard and free of moisture like the dried apples of Lent; you wrap it thereafter in the leaves of bay and myrtle, and endeavor to place it under the mattress of the bed of the beloved person.”- Le Petit Albert

Throw a ball of yarn into a barn, old house, or cellar, and wind, repeating the above lines, and the true love will appear and wind with you. To be tried at twelve o’clock at night, on Halloween.”- Maine folklore, Journal of American Folklore.

Love divination and love charms in some American folklore usually is supposed to take place on the Friday (Venus day) nearest to the full moon, specifically at midnight under cover of moonlit darkness. The closer this date falls to All Hallows Eve, the better, or, St. Judes Day, Midsummer, Easter, St. Thomas Night, New Years or Valentines Day. The sacred space in which love fortunes take place is most often a darkened bedroom with only a mirror and moonlight, or little candlelight. The idea of love charms a midnight before a full moon is found all throughout New English and Southern folklore originating from Scottish and English folk customs brought to the New World. Other places where love fortunes are tied to in American folklore are gardens, barns, cellars, basements and woodlands. Often, walking or working backwards is prescribed, but always at night, always near a full moon and best done after harvest time.

I enjoyed my thorough research into the Halloween-specific love fortunes, projects and operations, but what’s obvious is how important the full moon is to spiritual lore in general. It makes sense that our ancestors, having long associated the full moon and midnight with bewitchment and mystery, would promote the idea that love fortunes are best had at these times, since the act of love fortunes is dark and bewitching magic itself- make no mistake about that. These days, we think of full moon at midnight as “the witching hour” and a fun part of applying folklore to modern practice is waiting for those special times when our ancestors thought the work of witches was done. I suppose it's our tradition to try our love fortunes and bind our tricks by mirror, apple, knot, comb, doll, flower, yarn, water, needle, potion, powder, nut and cake, by the light of a full moon, in the darkness. Any heart-shaped herb is our ally, and red is our banner. Cupid is our messenger, and god help our victims.

An apple, a comb, a mirror, a lamp (or candle), a clock (to know when midnight has struck), a full moon at midnight- think of this as the Love Witching altar, holding some of the tools used to divine or bind love fortunes. Consecrating this altar, one could use salt water which is a recommended material in several love charms as well as sweet smelling smoke- as all things aromatic are ascribed erotic/aphrodisiac qualities in our collective culture. Offerings of salt cakes make sense as salt cakes were another love charm created at midnight near Halloween to dream of future love.

I just adore the old tall tales and divinations, the stories passed on through generations, especially where the tricky tricks of love magic is concerned. In a darkened basement, before a grand mirror, on the full moon, at the witching hour, nearest a holy feast day, place upon your altar a red apple nine times cut, place a comb, roses and your dollies. With knotted cord bind their hands, and speak your simple words; I knit, I wind, I knot and I bind...

Sources...

Plants of Love by Christian Rätsch

Annual Reportby Smithsonian Institution: Bureau of American Ethnology

The Folklore of Love and Courtship by Duncan Emrich

Journal of American Folklore

Grimoires: A History of Magic Books by Owen Davies

Witchcraft in the Southwest: Spanish and Indian Supernaturalism on the Rio Grande by Marc Simmons